FBI arrests one-time CSUSM student-body candidate

SAN MARCOS  The FBI arrested on Thursday a one-time candidate for Cal State San Marcos student-body president, 11 months after concerns of election tampering surfaced on campus.

Matthew Weaver is scheduled to be arraigned Friday in federal court in San Diego following his arrest on suspicion of wire fraud, access device fraud and unauthorized access to a computer, FBI Special Agent Darrell Foxworth said.

Details of the case were not immediately available, and a university spokeswoman declined to comment Thursday.

Last year, Cal State San Marcos officials said they suspected the user IDs and passwords of some 700 students were stolen to alter results of the student election, in which students cast votes via computer.

It was the largest theft of Cal State San Marcos students’ computer passwords in the school’s 24-year history.

The investigation into ID theft started after the university’s computer technicians alerted campus police to odd activity on a computer, authorities said.

Campus police arrested Weaver on March 15, 2012 — the last day of the four-day voting period — after they found him at a school computer and in possession of a device that could be used to steal computer passwords.

At the time, Weaver, a third-year business student, was running to be student body president.

Weaver bailed out the following day and was not charged with a crime at the time. A month later, the FBI said it was investigating the case.

University administrators canceled the mid-March election, for fear the results were compromised. It was rescheduled for May 2012.